Two films about films in the space of 24 hours: this must be the "Directors' Cannes" we've all been told about. Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces is rich, lush and ravishing; a noirish romance about cinema in general and Penélope Cruz in particular. Midway through, I was contentedly filing this as one of Almodóvar's finest. Then I walk out of the théâtre and, hey presto, it's gone. The whole thing is like some deluxe ice-cream sundae, crowned with whipped cream and decorated with cherries. It looks glorious, tastes delicious, and melts away in the midday sun.

Inglourious Basterds is something else again. Quentin Tarantino's self-styled spaghetti-western war movie sends Hitler to the movies where, by God, he gets what's coming to him. Brad Pitt plays "Aldo the Apache", who leads a crack band of US scalp-hunters on a mission to bump off the Nazi high command at a Paris film premiere. Inevitably Pitt wins the day, but not before he has had the film comprehensively stolen out from under him by Christoph Waltz, an actor who appears to have enjoyed (endured?) a long career in German soaps (doctors seem to be his specialty). Where some of the other players appear to be labouring to hit the right note, Waltz maintains a playful, silken menace, turning in an OTT performance that is somehow exactly right.

For all that, Inglourious Basterds remains a mess: an obese, pampered adolescent of a film that somehow manages to be both indolent and overexcited at the same time. Oh sure, this adolescent is talented and has ambition and moxy to burn. But he's so bumptious, brattish and full of himself that it becomes a little wearing. And what was with all those movie references? Michael Fassbender plays a heroic film critic, while Tarantino's script pays extended, obsequious tribute to French cinema and the auteur theory. It all struck me as special pleading; the smarm-tactics of a schoolboy who has rushed through his homework and decides that his best hope is to butter up the teacher.

We catch a taxi to the Hotel du Cap, a luxury hotel up the coast, to interview Charlotte Gainsbourg. After that we need to catch a taxi back home again, for the Cap is not for the likes of us and if we remain here too long we may turn into pumpkins or get bum-rushed by security. What a rarefied, fairytale kingdom this is. The discreet chalets are tucked amid rolling, Narnian woodland and the sea crashes on the rocks all around.

The concierge (very pleasant; not snooty at all) tells us to wait on a bench and a cab will be along soon. But we can't wait on the bench because Harvey Weinstein is waiting on the bench. There is no other bench but the Weinstein bench.

Eventually Weinstein gets up and strolls inside. We wait on the bench and a car draws up. I think it is our cab but it is not our cab. It is Angelina Jolie's cab. She steps out, suns herself for a spell and directs a brief smile at the three sweaty mortals who have somehow crash-landed in paradise, possibly aboard a flying bench.

A few minutes later the concierge comes out and apologises for the wait. I ask him if this place is always like this; a casual parade of Hollywood players and A-list stars. He assures me that it is not. If we came back in June, say, or July, we would find a far less glamorous clientele.